


still rock and roll to me

by redandgold



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 10:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13611948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: "I liked Carra the most."





	still rock and roll to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltstreets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/gifts).



> Carralonso are horrible and wonderful all at the same time, and I hate them a lot. SABS thank u for asking for this and loving these little shits and I love them and you very much!!! xoxo

 

The first word that immediately pops up in Jamie's head when asked to describe Xabi Alonso is always 'twat', but since that isn't something you can use in polite company he often has to resort to words like 'incredible' or 'great' or 'peerless'.

"Where did you learn a word like 'peerless'?" Xabi asked, once, and if their Champions' League qualification hadn't been so contingent on his being alive Jamie might have committed a crime.

Which is the whole problem with Xabi - he's an idiot, but somehow everyone forgives him for it. Stevie, obviously, which doesn't mean anything at all. (Jamie's seen Stevie kill men over Phil Collins and Xabi gets to change the channel in the middle of _Against All Odds._ ) If Crouchy gets a bad pass he just sort of grins and laughs it off. Rafa, even when Xabi fucks it up, is more than happy to let it slide; Jamie doesn't know if it's some kind of a national code or weird shit. _Badmouthe not your countrymen, or thou shalt not win the World Cup._

(It'd be worth a shot except he's got Gary Neville on his and he's never going to say anything about his nose that's a compliment.)

To tell the truth, Jamie'd made up his mind to dislike Xabi even before he came. It's one of those things. Handsome bastard Spaniards are always trouble, smooth-talking ones even more so, or however the eleventh commandment went. He'd been spoiling for a fight, too, Xabi swanning in with his fresh kit and clean shave and strange soft curls around _you'll never walk alone_. Looked like the kind of bloke who'd be out to steal Stevie's armband and god knew what else. Looked like the kind of bloke who wouldn't last two seconds against Lee Cattermole.

As it turns out, it doesn't take Xabi much longer than that to down a pint of beer while swearing at all the Englishmen in the world, and it doesn't take Jamie much longer than that to think that he wouldn't mind being sworn at. He spends the whole of their first night out staring with ever increasing helplessness at Xabi laughing, Xabi getting more animated as he got more drunk, Xabi catching his eye and winking. All of which is grade A Confusing.

"Why the fuck would anyone wink at me," Jamie complains when Stevie drops him home after.

"Beats me, mate," Stevie says, shrugging. "Maybe he was trying to make you feel better about your ugly mug."

Whatever it is, it's done; Jamie's barriers are down, and once they're down they're basically buried in the ground waiting to be walked all over. Xabi treads on them with a step somewhere between careful respect and sardonic amusement. Case in point: lazy Wednesday after training, Jamie ranting to no one in particular about the pointlessness of wing-backs. Pretty much everyone's already tuned out, except Stevie, although Jamie's fairly certain it's only because he's forgotten to bring his iPod.

"Carra," comes a voice from the other side of the room. Jamie's cut off in the middle of a word and looks up, blinking. Xabi's looking back at him from where he's lounging on the bench. It shouldn't even be possible – changing rooms are not built for sitting sexily – but Xabi's pulling it off with disgusting panache.

"What," Jamie barks, brows meeting together in a show of righteous fury that would have put anyone off except a smirking, wholly ridiculous Spaniard.

"Shut up."

"What do you mean I – "

"You have no idea what you're talking about – "

"Come here and say that again, you – "

The only way these things end is Stevie having to lean over and yell "give it a rest, mate" very loudly into Carra's ear, and even then he'll whip out his phone and furiously text Xabi _seriously, fight me_ and Xabi will immediately text back _if you'd like_ and much like _Return of the King_ it never ends.

After a while he's realised that he knows Xabi's number without needing to check the phonebook. It makes him laugh.

 

*

 

What's different is the night they lose the Champions' League.

He's seen Xabi win before, of course, this same trophy and the FA Cup a year later, seen the look of joy on his face like a little boy off for the summer. Seen the way Stevie kissed him and the way he kissed Stevie back, and there was something about it that Jamie couldn't put his finger on. To be fair he was probably too drunk to put his fingers anywhere he wanted to.

They might have been places his fingers shouldn't have been, anyhow. Best not to think about that.

What's different is the way Xabi loses. Like all the air's been taken out of him, a smash-and-grab of confidence that leaves him looking like a crumpled paper bag. Eyes down, arms around his legs that are curled in towards his chest. Mouth twisted into a quiet _o_ that flattens into a thin line when he picks up his siler medal.

There are other things to care about, Jamie knows, like the fact that they've just lost the Champions' League final, like the fact that they've got nothing to show for it this year. United running away with the league and Milan back to punish them. He feels the same bitter lump in his throat, tastes the same sourness that's been there since ninety six. The last two years were anomalies, and business has resumed.

There are other things to care about. But in all of that – Jamie catches Xabi's eye, once, holding his hands together, sitting on the edge of the champions' A-stand and staring off into the distance. Barely breathing. He calls out, "told you you couldn't run." Feels awfully hollow as he says it.

Xabi looks up and gives him a brief smile. No more bravado. Just someone who cared too much. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, Carra. You're always right."

It's the first time he's agreed with him. Jamie blinks and makes a start towards him, but Stevie's at his side looking like the world's falling down around him, and there are other things.

 

*

 

Whatever it is, it goes away; the first day back in training Xabi claps him on the back and calls him _Carradonna_ and immediately Jamie is up in arms calling him _Xavi_. "I cannot tell whether it is an insult or if you are just mispronouncing my name again," Xabi smirks, and Jamie laughs, and it's almost like nothing happened.

 _Something_ did, though. It's not anything that Jamie can explain. There are two sides to him, Jamie the Lad and Jamie the Liverpool Player, and there are two kinds of people that he loves, and Xabi is suddenly both of them.

 

*

 

He's watching Match of the Day and without even thinking he texts Xabi: _what were you saying about tiki taka this morning_

 _That it works_ , comes Xabi's reply almost immediately, because he obviously has nothing better to do and no better conversation partner (Jamie loves Stevie as much as everyone else, bless him, but he's duller than a stick in the mud).

 _Turn on the telly and look at Stoke destroying that idea,_ Jamie types, far too gleeful for something as inconsequential as Stoke City.

Ten seconds later his phone is ringing and he picks it up. "Alonso," he barks without even bothering to check caller ID, "face it, you know nothing about football."

"Carra, shut up before you embarrass yourself," Xabi replies easily, his tone of voice more suited to passive-aggressive tea in the Ritz. Not that Jamie would know what tea in the Ritz is like – they'd probably kick him out for his accent alone – but it sounds like the sort of twattish thing Xabi would do.

"I will not," Jamie insists, only just warming up. "You know I'm right, Spain is never going to win anything – all this shit-show _passing_ like you're a bloody half-time show at the Superbowl – "

"I did not know your grasp of culture extended beyond naming all the Chinese takeaways within a half-mile of Anfield – "

"Shut up, Alonso, you're just trying to make yourself feel better, the only reason you lot keep passing is because you can't run – "

"Us, not running? Have you ever seen yourself play?"

"Ex _cuse_ me, I'm a prime specimen in peak physical shape and I _dare_ you to come say that to my face – "

The line goes dead. "Oh," Jamie says, realisation dawning on his face. "Shit."

He isn't a naturally messy person so it's not like in the movies where they run around racing to clean everything up, but there are dishes on the table from one of the said Chinese takeaways that would make Xabi even more insufferable. It's a harrowing thought. Jamie quickly stuffs all of them into a bag and kicks it under the table, then turns back to Match of the Day and impatiently scribbles notes of exactly why everything Xabi's said for the past two years is wrong. He's about up to the Mancunian Disaster of last year when there's a smart knock on the door.

"Okay, look," he says as he opens it, "don't give me any of that football with an accent bullshit because it's not going to work and here I've got examples, all from today's games alone, that are going to wipe the floor with your arse. What?"

Xabi's looking at him weird. He doesn't reply even when Jamie stops talking for a second, which is in itself exceedingly generous because that's almost a whole second over what Jamie usually gives people. Instead he shrugs slightly and continues to stare. 

"Well." Jamie clears his throat and looks back at his notes. "What you were saying about that false nine – I mean, okay, maybe if you've got sodding _Totti_ – " obligatory face pull – "but you can't say that the traditional number nine is dead – " disapproving shake of head – "look at how Robbie's gotten on – " fond tilt to the side – "admittedly not a great haul, but if you watch the game – " very good kiss –

Kiss. Xabi's kissing him. Xabi's –

There's a weird part of his brain that disconnects almost immediately, like it's floated up from the rest of his body and is looking down at the scene with a kind of curious incredulity. _It's not special,_ his brain is telling him. _He's snogged Stevie before, and he's put his arm around you before, and it's Xabi. It's not like it means anything._

Jamie shuts it up pretty quick. Tilts up and kisses back, hard, drinks in the warmth of Xabi's skin and the arm that's snaked around his shoulder. Xabi pulls him in close and his hand wanders up to Jamie's hair, curling almost thoughtfully. A very good kisser, Jamie thinks again, stupidly, not that he'd ever expected anything else.

He's dropped his notes by this point. Xabi takes a step forward and presses him against the door and he lets him, catching a hold of Xabi's lapel because of course he's got a lapel, of course he's wearing a stupid suit to drive five minutes to meet his teammate, what the _fuck_.

Xabi leans back. Grins at him like the absolute twat he is. "I have finally found the best way to shut you up," he murmurs, and it's so ridiculous that Jamie almost chokes. "They should give me a medal."

"They should give me one for snogging your ugly mug," Jamie snipes back, although his embarrassing fixation with Xabi's jawline and the hand he's running over it right now takes most of the credibility out of that insult.

"Are you going to invite me in, or are we going to wait for your neighbours to start making assumptions?"

"We should do," Jamie says, jamming his chin against Xabi's shoulder to peer into the corridor. "Can't wait to see their jealous little faces, crying at the fitness of the bloke I've pulled."

 

*

 

 _It's not special_ , his brain tells him, and his brain is right, but Jamie doesn't care. Of course it isn't special; after a while it almost gets terribly routine. They trade customary banter in training and drive home and argue over _Premier League Classic Matches_ while wanking each other off.

Occasionally. They're not that crazy. They don't always watch the games.

But Jamie's a Northerner and routine is – comforting. Simple. Nice. He doesn't know what Xabi thinks about it, Xabi who can blow hot and cold and disappear for days without reason, who's probably got his sights set on something else better and bigger and something that he deserves, but he doesn't need to know. All he needs is the Xabi he saw one night in Athens, fingers curled into fists.

 

*

 

"You know," Jamie says once. They're in bed in Xabi's apartment in a state of undress Xabi insists on calling his Hunchpack Without A Lunchpack phase. “I thought you'd rather Stevie."

The fact that Xabi laughs is, Jamie thinks with a measure of pride, a testament to the strength of their friendship.

"This is easier," he says simply, and it's the kind of thing that would have completely wrecked anyone else, but Jamie gets it without Xabi having to explain himself. That's all there is. Two of them wrapped up in a kind of – whatever it is – peculiar only to themselves.

God, now he's starting to sound like a twat. "Slap me if I ever get as pretentious as you," he says, and Xabi snorts, rolling over to kiss him affectionately. It's disgusting.

"I will slap you even without a reason," he says. "Besides, you will never get as pretentious as me."

Jamie snorts. "Please. I can be pretentious."

"Not with that accent."

“Oh, yeah?”

“Also you know nothing about art.”

“You listen to sodding Coldplay.”

“What do you listen to? Gerry and the Pacemakers?”

“Look, everything you say sounds smart just because you’ve got that stupid accent.”

“Everything I say sounds smart because I am.”

“Bloody hell. _Look at me, my name is Xabi Alonso and my favourite painting is the Mona Lisa because of the use of portraiture and other clever Latin-y things and tonight I will cook for you los tiny expensive steaks that I have sliced with my cheekbones_.”

Xabi somehow manages to choke on thin air, which Jamie didn't even know was possible. Maybe the nightmare that is Jamie trying to sound Spanish got stuck in his throat.

"I'm sorry. Do that again. But this time slowly so that I can record it."

"Come off it.” Jamie leers at him. “You don’t have a recorder on you, you’re absolutely bollock-o.”

Xabi laughs again, clear, and it’s a moment like this Jamie realises just how young he is, the blinding, brilliant flash of light of a supernova.

“Shut up and go to sleep. Tomorrow I will cook for you the waffles.”  

“Expensive ones?”

“Frozen ones. Do you really not know any other painting besides the Mona Lisa?”

“Your face,” Jamie says, eloquent. He’s very good at flattery. Xabi calls it sucking up while sucking off.

“Good answer. Maybe you will get more fun to argue with eventually, as you improve.”

“Fuck you.”

It’s another half-hour before Xabi takes his own advice and drifts off, snoring softly into the pillow. Jamie lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Tries not to think but it comes to him anyway; what all of this is, the way you’re reading a book and you can feel how many pages there are to the end. He knows what Xabi would say to that, too. _You can read?_

“You know,” he says, chest full, but Xabi looks awfully quiet and kind with his eyes closed, and he forgets what he’d meant to say.

 

*

 

They don’t even make it to the Euros, which would be more embarrassing if it’d been unexpected. “I will fucking deck you,” Jamie growls at Xabi, who can’t keep his face straight for months on end.

Things have started to go into motion when Xabi flies off to Austria, the name _Gareth Barry_ being thrown around and all that, although both of them pretend not to notice. “I’ll bring you back a medal,” Xabi promises, and Jamie rolls his eyes. “Like fuck you will.”

 _It’s only Russia,_ he texts Xabi following their four-one win. _Don’t get cocky Alonso!!!_

 _Needed that last minute luck there,_ after Sweden. _Can’t run!! Can’t defend!!! Told you before!!_

 _Can’t even score,_ after Xabi hits the post and they top their group. _What are you, amateurs?_

 _Shut up Carradona!!!!!!_ Xabi texts back, full of himself when they beat Italy on penalties, an experience Jamie has never had the pleasure of having.

He doesn’t start for the final, and Jamie types _enjoy the bench!!_ only to delete it. Not everything, he thinks, you can have an argument about.

It’s bollocks past midnight when his phone starts ringing mad and he grabs at it, swearing and jamming his thumb to take the call. “Carra!” Xabi’s shouting down the line at him, somewhere in an Austrian nightclub with too much beer sloshed down his front and the medal he’d promised hanging around his neck. “Carra! You said we’d win nothing!”

Jamie doesn’t reply, just holds the phone. Xabi sounds drunk and delirious and so happy. “ _Spain?_ ” he says in his atrocious Scouse accent, just as bad as anything Jamie’s ever tried if not worse, “ _Spain! Can’t run! Can’t run!_ ” He laughs and laughs and Jamie can hear people in the background laughing as well, a sort of infectious glee taking hold. There must be flashing lights and vodka shots and a very bad DJ playing _YMCA,_ the same there was after Istanbul. “You can fuck off! Carra, are you listening to me? Fuck off!”

One thousand five hundred kilometres away in a room somewhere in Liverpool, Jamie sits with the lights off and his arm hanging on the knees tucked into his chest, and listens.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- I TRIED VERY. HARD. to get a line from She's Always A Woman into the title because that's a 150% Xabi song but.... you'll have to be satisfied with this because 'Garden of Eden' is too pretentious even for xabbo.  
> \- Liv lost the CL final in Athens in 2007  
> \- YES, [HOLA](http://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg22ms6Dyd1qevq1yo1_500.jpg) [QUERIDA](http://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgmjqhXRMy1qevq1yo1_400.jpg) [REFERENCES](http://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg0z3o0PiY1qevq1yo1_500.jpg)  
> \- Gerry and the Pacemakers is.....you know. that song.  
> \- Spain won the Euros in 2008. England didn't even QUALIFY, GOD.  
> \- Xabi did [hit the post](http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season=2008/matches/round=15093/match=300704/postmatch/report/index.html#guiza+goal+sinks+greece) in their game against Greece, what do you mean I don't have to read all the match reports for a single line  
> \- They've said a whole bunch of stupid things about each other but [this](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DVLPbMAVwAAxbDv.jpg) is the one that I love the most  
> \- Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
